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21136 - Ocean Monument

Jetro - Posted on 28 July 2017

MINECRAFT has taken become a strong theme in the LEGO catalogue and it has a large following. There is something pleasing about turning a digital sandbox into a physical experience and LEGO is the perfect medium for it. The 21366 Ocean Mountain takes MINECRAFT fans to an as yet unexplored underwater world.

The 1122 pieces in this upcoming set bring new challenges, new dangers and new colours!

There are several mechanisms and the monument can be set up in different configurations to create new play each time.

The set comes with 8 numbered bags and 4 numbered books. The first book has the traditional overview of what is built with each bag. You start of with a section of what looks like coral reef and then move on to the foundation of the Ocean Monument itself.

The reef section is quite straight forward and includes both of the characters that come in this set. It also includes all of the animals in the set: 2 puffer fish (only the larger is shown in the image below and a four-legged octopus, all with printed tiles for faces. A very nice and entertaining start for a much larger set.

I will not go through the whole building experience of the set - that is best experienced first hand - and will move straight on to the finished model, which in this case includes the second puffer fish on an "invisible" rotating arm: another very nice play feature.

Not a very inspiring view of the monument. It basically looks like a very large square box. Closer inspection reveals a number of play features and hidden mechanisms that make the monument come alive.

The roof of the monument comes off in a single piece. If you look closely at the image you can see there are 4 (2 visible) light green blocks in the roof structure. You will see those again later as they are independent MINECRAFT materials or building blocks.

The monument also reveals a hidden building block on the right and after taking off the arch at the entrance you get easy access to the blue door that also has a mechanism to open it

The inside of the monument hides a vault for golden blocks that also has a mechanism.

This mechanism is located at the back of the monument.

Other play features already mentioned include the hidden bloc on the right and the turntable for the small puffer fish.

While the set is no (as) modular in setup as other recent MINECRAFT sets, the monument opens on both sides with hinges.This way you can easily change the configuration and even use the roof as another construction element.

The last of the 4 books includes the complete inventory of the set. As you will have already seen, the set contains a sea of sand-green, particularly a large number of 1x4, 1x6 and 2x2 bricks. There is also a large number of dark green plates. What I found particularly intresting about this set is the fact that is uses mostly "standard" LEGO bricks and plates to build an engaging story. Of course the animals use a small number of more special elements to create their attractive shapes, but that's proportionally a small number.

We would Llike to thank LEGO for providing the set. The opinions in this review are solely our own.